Jamie Dornan Admits He Knew the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey‘ Franchise Would Be Critically Panned
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Jamie Dornan recently opened up about being cast as a lead in the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise during an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast. During his convo with host Josh Horowitz—which was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike—, the actor revealed the path to landing the lead part of Christian Grey wasn't necessarily linear.
“It wasn’t an instant yes by any means,” Jamie mused about accepting the role, adding, “It needed to be talked through...I sought counsel from friends, family, a lot of actors.”
Interestingly enough, the celeb initially wound up losing out on the part to fellow actor Charlie Hunnam, who ultimately dropped out of the movie, leaving the door open for Jamie to take up the mantle.
The opportunity resulted in some truthfully mixed feelings for Jamie: “When I didn’t get it, I felt a bit of relief because I knew that guy is going to get wrecked here,” Jamie said. “He maybe felt the same…suddenly there I was, but with way less time to make a decision. I got cast five weeks before we started filming. I knew that it came with all that baggage…that the reality was it would make a ton of money and the fans would love and the critics would despise it. That’s what happened with the books and that’s what we were making. We were staying truthful to the books, and we knew what that would be.”
Turns out Jamie—who co-starred alongside Dakota Johnson in the film trilogy—wasn't too far off in his assessment. All three Fifty Shades of Grey movies wound up grossing over $1.3 billion (!!) worldwide. And yet they averaged a ~15 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.
But, honestly? That massive $$$$ stat is definitely a bigger win for fans—and Jamie seems to agree.
“Movies that are made for the fans that fans love can be seen as a success,” he said in the interview. “I’m grateful that Dakota and I have managed to come out [in the years since] and make work that people still like and have had some of those said critics do a bit of a 180.”
Elsewhere during the actor's time on the podcast, Jamie was asked about which superhero movie auditions he’s been on over the years, to which he admitted he’s surprisingly stayed away from superhero auditions with the exception of one: Superman for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel—a role that wound up going to Henry Cavill.
“The only one I auditioned for is Superman,” Jamie dished. “That was way back when, like when Henry Cavill got cast. That’s probably 12 years ago or something. I wore my own suit there. Was that a mistake? They were Superman pajamas, they weren’t an actual suit. I remember an early audition for that. I got nowhere near putting the [real] suit on…I’ve had meetings with heads of studios that do those things and would talk about it, but I never got deep in any audition process for them.”
BRB, writing a very stern letter to the DC Universe heads as we speak. 😭
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